Toby Jones

A chameleon-like performer with a knack for disappearing completely into his roles, Toby Jones was an award-winning actor and playwright who parlayed his success on the London stage into an acclaimed...
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The fan bases of Parks and Recreation and The Office tend to overlap because let's face it, they are very similar. But if you really put the two sitcoms head to head, only one comes out on top. Of course I'm talking about the one that came first—The Office. Not 100 percent on board yet? Here are 10 ways that prove Michael Scott is better than Leslie Knope and the rest of her crew!
1. The long history between Jim and Pam definitely led to a bigger pay off once they finally got together.
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Leslie and Ben are cute, but the history and chemistry just doesn't measure up.
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2. When Jim acknowledged the camera, it was usually funny and used to point out how outrageous his co-workers are.
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When April does it, it's just creepy and points out her own weirdness.
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3. Everyone on Parks and Recreation bullies Jerry/Terry/Larry/Gary. They don't even call him by his real name!
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Sometimes Phyllis got the short end of the stick, other times it was Toby, and sometimes it was Kevin. Either way there was a balance and therefore feels more like a family.
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4. Michael Scott really loves his job, but he is really bad at it most of the time, which is funny.
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Leslie is really loves her job and is really good at it, so it's anti-climatic.
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5. Ron Swanson claims he doesn't care about his job.
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But we all know who does apathetic best.
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6. Chris Pratt plays the idiot and it can be funny and adorable.
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But Kevin's voice being so close to The Cookie Monster makes him the funnier one.
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7. April singing "The Pit" was touching only because what it meant, but we would never listen to it again.
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When Andy sang "Take A Chance On Me" with his group it was really sweet, sounded good, and didn't make us miss Michael Scott for a little while.
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8. The Office taps into how we feel about most of our jobs. Working at a paper company in a world that is using less paper? That's pretty tragic...and funny.
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On the other hand Leslie, Ben, and Chris love their jobs too much to be relatable.
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9. Pam and Jim were awesome because they came up with clever pranks together.
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April and Andy's role play on the other wasn't ever as cute or clever.
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10. The complicated friendship and rivalry between Jim and Dwight is legendary.
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Sorry Leslie and Ann, but you didn't have as much fun as them.
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Which show do you think is better? Tweet us your answers to the Twitter handles below!
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Maggie Gyllenhaal's political thriller The Honourable Woman scooped a top prize at the U.K.'s Broadcasting Press Guild Television and Radio Awards in London on Thursday night (12Mar15). The TV show won the Best Drama Series award at the glitzy event, while another top honour went to Brit Toby Jones, who has starred in films including The Hunger Games and the Captain America blockbusters.
He won the Best Actor trophy at the prizegiving for his role in TV movie Marvellous, while Quartet star Sheridan Smith was named Best Actress for her role as veteran pop star Cilla Black in small screen biopic Cilla.
Jones' Marvellous was also named Best Single Drama, while James Nesbitt's thriller The Missing landed the Breakthrough Award.
Funnyman Lenny Henry was honoured with the Harvey Lee Outstanding Contribution to Broadcasting prize.

British actors Toby Jones and Sheridan Smith will compete for top trophies at the U.K.'s upcoming Royal Television Society Programme Awards next month (Mar15). The Hunger Games star is up for the best actor title for his role in TV movie Marvellous, going up against Tom Hollander for The Poet and Adeel Akhtar for Utopia, while Smith lands a nomination in the best actress category for her portrayal of 1960s singer Cilla Black in the TV series Cilla. She will compete against British actresses Sarah Lancashire (Happy Valley) and Georgina Campbell (Murdered By My Boyfriend).
Fargo, True Detective and The Big Bang Theory will go head-to-head for the International title while Chris O'Dowd's TV series Moone Boy, which he created, co-writes and stars in, is up for a Scripted Comedy prize.
Other nominees include funnyman Billy Connolly for the Presenter prize for his documentary Billy Connolly's Big Send Off, Maggie Gyllenhaal's series The Honourable Women for Drama Serial, while Peaky Blinders, starring Cillian Murphy, will compete for the Drama Series title against Happy Valley and Line of Duty.
The winners will be announced at a ceremony in London on 17 March (15).

Veteran actor Bill Nighy is worried fans of Dad's Army will hate the upcoming movie adaptation of the beloved British sitcom. The Love, Actually star portrays John Le Mesurier's character Sergeant Arthur Wilson in the new film based on the wartime comedy TV series, alongside Toby Jones as Captain George Mainwaring.
However, Nighy admits he was plagued by doubts during filming, telling Britain's The Times newspaper, "People may not forgive us for making Dad's Army... Every day I worried about it. I'd then look at Toby Jones as Captain Mainwaring and think, 'We might be OK'."
The Dad's Army film, which also stars Catherine Zeta-Jones, is due for release in 2016.

The last surviving member of the original Dad's Army cast, Ian Lavender, is to make a guest appearance in the upcoming movie remake. The veteran actor played Private Frank Pike in the classic British TV series, and his role has been taken over by The Inbetweeners star Blake Harrison in the new big screen version opposite Toby Jones, Bill Nighy and Catherine Zeta-Jones.
Lavender has now revealed he will be returning to Dad's Army with a cameo appearance playing a character called Brigadier Pritchard, and the actor is delighted with the promotion.
He tells British newspaper the Birmingham Mail, "(It is) the highest rank I have ever reached... It was great fun and I was given such a great welcome... I went up with a little trepidation - just walking on set with all those people! I felt a bit like I did on my first day on Dad's Army 40-odd years ago... I was quite pleased I was still capable of acting with people like Toby Jones and Bill Nighy at my ripe old age!"
Lavender goes on to throw his support behind the film, insisting critics are wrong to dismiss the remake.
He adds, "A lot of people were saying it was a bad idea to re-make Dad's Army but I don't think that at all... When I heard who the cast were I thought 'That's not bad at all'."
The 68 year old also doled out advice to his younger replacement: "I met Blake, the charming young actor playing Pike. I told him 'Don't worry what I think, you're playing him now!' I am tired of people asking me 'Who is playing you?' Nobody is playing me, Blake is playing Pike. Let him get on with playing it his way."

Early scenes from the Dad's Army movie have appeared online after a British news and photo agency captured a dramatic sea rescue off the coast of Yorkshire, England. WENN photographers spotted Toby Jones rescuing Catherine Zeta-Jones in the frigid waters at Bridlington Beach, which doubles as the coast of Dover in the remake of the beloved BBC TV comedy series.
Jones leads the cast as Captain George Mainwaring, the leader of a World War II home guard unit, and Zeta-Jones portrays a journalist spy.
Bridlington Beach was crawling with British stars as Tuesday's (04Nov14) filming also included veterans Bill Nighy, Sir Michael Gambon, Tom Courtenay, Sarah Lancashire and Blake Harrison.
The original Dad's Army show ran from 1968 to 1977 and was made into a spin-off film in 1971. The cast included Arthur Lowe, as Mainwaring, Ian Lavender, Clive Dunn and John Le Mesurier.

The Inbetweeners star Blake Harrison has been cast as simpleton Private Pike in the movie adaptation of beloved British TV series Dad's Army. The role was played by Ian Lavender on TV between 1968 and 1977, and now Harrison will join a cast that includes Toby Jones as Captain Mainwaring, Bill Nighy as Sergeant Wilson, Michael Gambon, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Mark Gatiss.
The BBC comedy, which was voted Britain's best sitcom in 2004, followed the exploits of a World War Two Home Guard platoon stationed in English coastal town Walmington-on-Sea.

Emma Thompson has thrown her support behind Russell Brand's campaign to start a political revolution in Britain.
Brand has been extremely vocal about his ideas for overturning the U.K.'s democracy, and his stance has drawn criticism from stars including music mogul Simon Cowell, who urged the actor to prove his point by giving back his Hollywood pay cheques.
Thompson has now backed the outspoken funnyman, admitting she "can't stand" the current political landscape and fears a revolution is needed to rectify the short-falls of those in power. The Harry Potter star tells Britain's The Times newspaper, "We're going to have to have a revolution... I am encouraged by people like Russell Brand saying 'Don't vote'. I've got to the point where I listen to reports about what's happening on the FTSE or the Dow Jones and I think I'm in an Orwell (a George Orwell novel). Why is it always about earning money to buy things? How have you made it about this and sidelined the arts and everything that makes you happy? Side-lining actual conversation for a media that spouts endless drivel."
The actress, who is has been campaigning against oil drilling in the Arctic, also believes environmental issues will turn the public against the government, adding, "I can't stand it any more, what is being done in this world. I can't stand it, I can't bear the fact that they are going to drill for oil. They're not drilling for f**king oil in the Arctic! The Arctic belongs to us, all of us, they can't be allowed to do that, so whatever it takes... non-violent direct action, civil disobedience, you have to do it!"
Thompson is an active environmental and social campaigner and visited the Arctic with charity Greenpeace earlier this year (14).

British singer Joss Stone is resurrecting her acting career after landing a role in Martin Scorsese's latest movie project. The Oscar-winning director is the executive producer of new war film Tomorrow, which is set in Britain and focuses on soldiers returning from battle.
Stone, who previously had a part in historical drama series The Tudors, is now heading to the big screen opposite British actors Stephen Fry, Toby Jones and Jeremy Irons in the film, which is to be directed by Scorsese's protege Martha Pinson.
Tomorrow will mark Pinson's directorial debut after numerous collaborations with Scorsese.
Stone completed her first day on set on Tuesday (23Sep14).

Now that the halfway mark has hit between the dawn of a hopeful 2014 and the inevitable exasperated gasp of relief that another year of harrowing grief is finally over, we're inclined to look back on the past six months of cinematic glory. First, we set our sights to the best performances of the year, both leading and supporting. Next, we turn to movie scenes and moments — the funny, shocking, moving, and just plain weird instances that stuck with us long after we stepped out of the theater. Here's a quick list of some of the most memorable movie scenes and moments we've seen so far in 2014.
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The evolution sequence in NoahDarren Aronofsky's account of the great flood jumped levels in progressive thinking when it included a scene that comfortably meshed creationist beliefs with the science of evolution. The sequence, which followed an aquatic amoeba as it grew into a fish, then a lizard, then a series of mammals, until ultimately becoming the impetus for mankind, is not just intellectually rich, but visually dazzling.
Gustave's prison break in The Grand Budapest HotelEvery chapter in Wes Anderson's latest film is terrific fun, but Ralph Fiennes on the run from the law (and the vicious Adrien Brody) is about as merry as it gets... even with the haunting undercurrent in an approaching World War.
The opening sequence in BorgmanThe mysterious Danish picture Borgman institutes an excitement, a levity, and a curious nature all at once with its terrific opening sequence, wherein the title character is drawn from his home underground for unexplained reasons and forced to flee the wrath of angry villagers, and help to liberate his friends from the same.
The "Spaceship, spaceship, spaceship!" gag in The Lego MovieServing primarily as a punchline to a long gestating joke, Charlie Day's Lego character's manic exclamation of his favorite word is the biggest laugh in a very funny movie.
Scarlett Johannson abducting a man with neurofibromatosis in Under the SkinJonathan Glazer's bizarre film is nothing if not evasive, but peaks in its enigmatic nature when the nameless hero/villain Scarlett Johansson, herself of mysterious origins, abducts and seems to warm to a man afflicted with a facial deformity. Cue the process of undress and cannibalistic black liquid floors...
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Ken Watanabe's big moment in Godzilla"Let them fight."
The end credits of 22 Jump StreetChris Miller and Phil Lord embrace their love of genre parody in the post-narrative moments of 22 Jump Street, in which they send their starring duo through a long line of false sequels (entailing their attendance at med school, military school, traffic school... there are a good dozen of these, all of 'em funny).
The statutory rape endorsement in Transformers: Age of ExtinctionLet's get this straight: we're simply in awe of this scene due to how god damn bizarre it is, not at all on board with its message (or even its artistic merits in a movie about robot wars). We can't help but think about Mark Wahlberg challenging the validity of 20-year-old Jack Reynor's romantic relationship with 17-year-old Nicola Peltz, only to see Reynor pull a laminated document from his pocket that exempts him from all legal ramifications of dating a minor. Weird as all hell.
The getaway scene in Night MovesNear unprecedented tension hits when Jesse Eisenberg and his two fellow eco-terrorists attempt to flee the scene after programming a time bomb to detonate an ecologically destructive dam. The trio sits on the midnight river, hoping to avoid both the eyes of passersby and the wrath of a deadly explosive. It's edge-of-your-seat kind of stuff.
Liam Neeson grabbing a gun in mid-air while the airplane aboard which he is a passenger hurdles into oblivion as a team of hijackers attempts to take the whole thing hostage in Non-StopRight?
20th Century Fox Film
The Quicksilver scene in X-Men: Days of Future PastEvan Peters spends very little time onscreen in the latest X-Men picture, but his talents are milked for all their value when he is charged with dashing around a slow-motion Pentagon kitchen to the soothing tunes of Jim Croce.
The grade school scene in SnowpiercerThe most disturbing, macabre, and wickedly fun scene in a movie that has no shortage of any of those three qualities, a very pregnant Allison Pill's grade school seminar in the back half of Snowpiercer stands out as the film's most enjoyable achievement. Pill sells the hell out of lunacy in this sequence.
Paul Rudd walks into a bar in They Came Together Our favorite joke in They Came Together, narrowly beating out Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler's mutual love of fiction books, is Rudd's sullen conversation with a highly redundant barkeep who, let's just say, calls 'em like he sees 'em. Over and over and over.
Nicolas Cage asking a neighborhood kid if he's still MMA fighting in Joe I have no idea why I love this so much, but one brief exchange in the sleepy, somber movie Joe has Cage chatting with a young neighbor in a bodega, asking about how his martial arts practice has been going. It's incredibly peculiar and charming, though I don't expect any of that to carry through here.
The Zola computer reveal in Captain America: The Winter Soldier Although we weren't crazy about the second Captain America movie, we have to tip a hat to the reveal that Toby Jones' Nazi scientist has been living on for the last 70 years in the form of a bulky yet surpemely efficient supercomputer. The sort of weird stuff that we love to see in the crevices of Marvel flicks.

Reprised voice role of Dobby in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1"

Played an English Judge in "The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc"

Lent his vocal talent in "The Adventures of Tintin," directed by Steven Spielberg

Cast in "Amazing Grace," Michael Apted's film about the slave trade in 19th century Britain

Cast as Robert Cecil, the first Earl of Salisbury, in the HBO/Channel 4 production "Elizabeth I"

Summary

A chameleon-like performer with a knack for disappearing completely into his roles, Toby Jones was an award-winning actor and playwright who parlayed his success on the London stage into an acclaimed string of roles in films and television on both sides of the Atlantic. A bit and supporting player in U.K. and European features since the early 1990s, he hit his stride in 2002 with an Olivier Award-winning turn in the West End comedy "The Play What I Wrote." The show's popularity led to more visible roles in features and television, including "Finding Neverland" (2004) and "Elizabeth I" (2005). He gained his strongest notices and widest exposure for his portrayal of author Truman Capote in "Infamous" (2005), which was largely overshadowed by Philip Seymour Hoffman's Oscar-winning take that same year in "Capote" (2005). Regardless of the snub, Jones' commitment to his characters had an effect on critics and producers alike, and he was soon a regular in both American and Continental productions, including "The Painted Veil" (2006) and Frank Darabont's "The Mist" (2006). He ably portrayed figures of historical importance in based-on-fact dramas like "Frost/Nixon" (2008) and the George Bush biopic "W" (2008), in addition to lending his colorful characterizations to entertainments like "Captain America: The First Avenger" (2011) and "The Hunger Games" (2012). A true actor's actor with the ability to completely transform himself to suit the needs of a character, Jones remained one of the more respected and sought after performers in film.